Unverified Guest requests booking but we don't get notification

[Ian37700]

We have had a run of unverified guest trying to book. For some reason they manage to sign up with only a phone number. Because we get no notification and they are usually booking same day by the time we find the attempted booking it is too late to assist them with getting verified. We had one yesterday and another one today. I am fine they are blocked from instant book but I think Airbnb should give a notification. I have been noticing in the last 3 months a lot of unverified guest trying to book with only a phone number and not verified. Most of the time they don't read any replies you do and abandon the platform as I have just checked a few and weeks and months later their account is sill unverified. 

Is anyone else noticing or can explain why no notification and have hosts had luck coaching guests into getting verified or are these people to ignore. Many of our guests have brand new accounts and so far that has not caused us problems. If we rejected new accounts we would have a very low occupancy. 

[Helen744]

@Ian37700 Ian there is a big difference between an unverified account and a booking for the night in question with only a phone number. Its Airbnbs job to verify the guests account not yours . I hope that you have govenment ID ticked on your requirements .If you are implying that you accept guests without reviews then a lot of people do but to accept a guest without ID given to Airbnb, is foolish... H

[Ian37700]

@Helen744 

I can't find the government ID setting you talk about where is that? I have checked all settings I can see and can't find info on that topic for hosts only guests. 

The primary issue is no notification is received on phone or computer if unverified and you get your calendar blocked until you reject and its often last minute bookings so it blocks other from booking, we can't see how to stop the calendar block or how to get notifications in this scenario. Airbnb support can't explain it and say they have escalated the issue and just closed the ticket.  Even thought the booking isn't accepted by us they calendar is still blocked until we hit reject.  

I have the following turned on but it doesn't stop the calendar being blocked until we reject the request even with no verification. I can't see any other options. 

Good track record
Only allow guests who have stayed on Airbnb without incidents or negative reviews.

There must be a bug where you don't get notifications in this situation and you only find this by checking messages regularly or the calendar. I wish Airbnb didn't block the dates out blocking real last minute bookings when clearly the guest is not verified and instant book was blocked, it seems illogical Airbnb allow this but they assure me this is working as expected for them. 

If the guest is new to Airbnb I get that it's their job to sort but we have picked up a few last min bookings by helping guests that communicate and have issues getting identified that likely would have given up on Airbnb or booking with us.

[Helen744]

@Ian It needs to have Instant book turned on and a section where you add extra requirements and can send a series of questions to the guest .This can also require a 'good track record ' as far as reviews. Some people think that IB means that you do not have any rules. And therefore may attempt to book if they are underage or without proper ID and then find themselves blocked. Go back into the desk top until you find that area and see what is there. Also to separate the two , Airbnb are probably rejecting your guests 'after ' they instant book ' because of no proper Id . It would be better if you update your requirements so that Airnbnb know what to block before it gets to you... H

[Ian37700]

Thanks @Helen744 

They are unable to book without complete ID but they are able to make a request to book which we can accept or reject. I know I am repeating myself but I will describe differently. 

1. When unverified book don't' get a notification.

2. Until we reject the calendar is blocked out.

3. We would be happy if guests with no verified details were rejected from booking. 

4. No booking was made as we had the option of rejecting. 

This is a problem when we are relying on last minute bookings. Its not really a problem when someone does this a few weeks ahead as you have time to sort and free up the calendar. 

We have had one person with only phone verified try to book 3 times this week. They are not reading messages from us as no read notification on messages from us. They only have phone verified but no email or ID verification. Each time our calendar was blocked and we didn't receive the normal notification on host or co-host phones so were not immediately aware this was happening. You shouldn't have to check your calendar multiple times a day to check if an unverified person is blocking your calendar with a booking request. I don't even know how this makes sense. Why is the calendar blocked until you reject these unverified requests?

We had a second person book 3 days with the same issue only phone ID with the same results.

Even though we picked this up in less than 10 hours each time we had 4 days go unbooked as a considerable amount of time the calendar was blocked during the week. We run 80% occupancy minimum and do large last min discounts and pick up a lot of bookings last minutes in slow season. 

It doesn't like you can stop idiots or bad actors from blocking your calendar without ID if you have instant book on and it appears the notifications you get with normal requests just don't happen when they don't have verified status. 

No doubt we wouldn't have booked every night out in the week but we would have gotten a few nights. While this was going on it significantly restricted our ability to be visible for booking. This seems to be increasing where unverified guests book and cause this problem and it seems to be escalating so we would like to work this out but have had no useful information from support. This seems like a bug but maybe it is how Airbnb operate but it is very host unfriendly. Airbnb support just don't get how this is a problem. 

[Helen744]

@Ian37700 The guest is not booked at all until you accept the booking , its different on Instant book as the guest is automatically booked . The problem you say is that you are not receiving notifications on 'your app' I assume you mean , but are you receiving them on the dashboard ?It could be as simple as the host has added the co host to the app and temporarily disabled themselves. This happens , so then the host cannot see the notifications until they access their home computers . The non verification is a different matter and unless you have accepted the booking in some way , while being aware of non verification , should not happen either.. you say that you have talked the guests on occasion through the verification process , this should not be happening at all unless you are accepting these bookings , because non verification , can mean , their credit card has no funds... H

[Ian37700]

Thanks for the reply @Helen744 

We get notifications for everything on both phones except this scenario which is happening more since the increased verification requirements came in earlier in the year, I am the host and my wife is the co-host and we have all the notifications enabled. The guest isn't booked as we have an accept and decline button showing but they calendar is blocked even when we have not accepted and the instant book was blocked. We try on other devices and browsers and our property isn't searchable on the dates in question until we do reject on the request to book then the date is available again in seconds. It is like Airbnb holds the dates but there is no booking made or cancelled. Support say this is normal but phone support is variable so who knows. I hoped posting here I would get a clearer answer. I am very familiar with Airbnb settings and processes but this one still doesn't make sense and its a very unhelpful feature if its how it is supposed to work. 

[Helen744]

@Ian37700 are you able to send the person trying to book a message to say 'please book , as they have not booked.?. Its a tough one Ian ... maybe someone else here will be able to tell you if there is something else going on., as it does not sound as if its functioning correctly... H

[Helen744]

@Ian37700 Just another thought Ian3370 , it may be , if a last minute booking, that the guests verification is not achieved before the guests check in time or  after your check in time . This achieves nothing and possible bookings are turned away . As the weather improves if you make your check in time later then some of these bookings may pass through to the keeper. Maybe a note on your listing to say 'please book before 6pm as we are not a motel ' or something similar may assist.... H

[Nur785 · Accepted solution]

@Ian37700 

Hi Ian, I'm afraid this is a known issue that has not been fixed yet and I think that's by design. This is an attempt to keep a guest while they are verifying by holding onto their choice of place. There are two instances where your calendar gets blocked without you getting a notification. One is when the guest books and is not verified as you are experiencing, or sometimes, and I don't know how this happens, I will see a note that says waiting for payment. but while they are waiting for payment my calendar remains blocked. It's really unfair since these may last up to 24 hours. I don't get many last minute bookings so this doesn't bother me much, but I can see it would be frustrating if you rely on last minute bookings. I'm afraid, the only solution for now is to have your calendar on your phone and check frequently. 

[Ian37700]

@Nur785 Thanks for clarifying this for me. You have described exactly what I am seeing and have confirmed it's intentionally bad design for hosts but aimed at protecting a place for a guest that in my experience more than likely will never get onboard and make a legitimate booking. They usually have a phone number marked verified that we don't have at that stage that Airbnb does to contact them, detecting this by support would be a very simple task to automate.

It would be nice if Airbnb rang them to help them over the line quickly and if not contactable just cancel the request because its not a valid request. They have to know this is happening but don't care. This is easily exploitable to cause issues for hosts or just a total nuisance for hosts when someone keeps spamming bookings because they are stupid as happened this week. There is no skin off Airbnb nose as if your blocked in low season there are plenty of others to take genuine bookings particularly when  average occupancy is around 30% as it is in our area now so Airbnb still gets a booking. This only penalises specific hosts with this issue but doesn't stop their income. 

The support team play dumb or are untrained, either way same result as nothing gets done or escalated. We have single bedroom unit so it appears last minute bookings especially in off peak are a lot of the bookings. Things will improve as we head into summer. 

When we have last minute gaps we will be checking the calendar regularly each day now but they really need an ability to resolve this issue with either fixing the notifications or just stop unverified or with not credit card requesting to book or if they do not blocking the calendar and non verified or unable to pay Guests shouldn't have that privilege. Lastly being able to block problem guests for any reason should be an option to stop the spam bookings or a guest you don't wish to host again. This whole process is a time sink and opportunity cost to the host.